German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Tuesday accused US President Donald Trump of stirring up conflicts in the Middle East and risking a new arms race as Qatar’s neighbours cut ties with Doha.”US President Trump’s recent giant military contracts which Gulf monarchies raise the risk of a new spiral in arms sales,” Gabriel warned in an interview with the Handelsblatt daily to appear Wednesday.
“This policy is completely wrong and is certainly not Germany’s policy,” he added, in extracts of his interview released Tuesday.
“I am very concerned with the dramatic escalation and the consequences for the whole region,” Gabriel continued.
Saudi Arabia and allies including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain announced Monday they were severing diplomatic relations and closing air, sea and land links with Qatar.
They accused the tiny Gulf state of harbouring extremist groups and suggested Qatari support for the agenda of Saudi Arabia’s regional arch-rival Iran.
Energy-rich Qatar has long had strained ties with its neighbours but the move by Riyadh and its supporters shocked observers, raising fears the crisis could destabilise an already volatile region.
The dispute comes less than a month after Trump visited Saudi Arabia and called for Muslim nations to unite against extremism.
Trump on Tuesday backed the regional efforts to isolate Qatar, supporting Saudi Arabia and its allies and suggesting that the key US ally — home to the largest American airbase in the Middle East — has been funding extremism.
During his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Trump signed arms contracts worth $110 billion with Riyadh.
Gabriel warned against completely isolating Qatar and said the move is an attack on the Gulf state’s very existence.
“Such a ‘Trumpification’ of relations in a region already susceptible to crises is particularly dangerous,” Gabriel said.
He added that the nuclear deal agreed with Iran in 2015 had allowed just such an escalation to be avoided.
“A toxic conflict between neighbours is that last thing we need,” Gabriel warned.
He will meet his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir in Berlin on Wednesday.
Mettttttttttttt news just in as it relates to the uptown mix up and since they are here reading. A di helper ketch belly and all along wifey footing the bill and taking helper to hospital not knowing the belly get ketch inna house…run gone
Goodness gracious. But when him have time to breed helper, is not like di wife a globetrotter and barely at home. Man and dem hood hab no borders, right in your house suh? Him couldn’t teck a woman from a far parish and wear a blasted condom? Just like him could breed him could ketch disease bring home, dats if him nuh ketch sitten bring home. Dem just celebrate dem 25th anniversary nuh too long ago, what a present to give to your wife in memory of unno journey togedda. Nothing is ever as it seems after all. Thanks fi di suss, mumma.
The world will be very dearly for the trump presidency. He will go down in History as being worse than Hilter for f???cking up every corner of the world. The only ones that seems to can stomach him are SArabia and Putin and a something dem a look. How soon everyone forget that the 911 attacks were funded by Saudi.
Get well Rachel maddow
She on now